Murphy heard the cat's hiss and stopped. She looked down at her, noticing the hesitation at the door. There were all sorts of reasons that the cat could hesitate, but there was one very nasty reason that she might not have come inside yet.
The threshold.
Murphy didn't even like to invite people she knew inside. Not after something wearing Harry's face had gotten to her.
There was no way she was going to vocalize an invitation to a stranger-even if said stranger was merely a cat.
Instead, she bustled about the kitchen until she found the fish from the night before. She returned to the doorstep with it and set it on a dish just inside the threshold, waiting to see if the cat would take the bait, and ready to go for her sword if there was any trouble.